|
Protect Americans Against Mad Cow Disease
After years of trepidation the unwanted happened: a cow afflicted with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)—mad cow disease—was discovered in the U.S.
Urge the US Department of Agriculture to help protect the American public against mad cow disease by taking the following steps: test more cattle for BSE, institute a mandatory animal tracking system, prohibit the use of vertebral columns from cattle of all ages in advance meat recovery systems (in a recent USDA survey, one out of three samples of stripped meat was contaminated with central nervous-system tissue), publicly release distribution lists during voluntary recalls, and ask Congress for mandatory recall authority.
Send a message to Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman today!
| Sample Letter for Campaign |
Subject: Protect Americans Against Mad Cow Disease
Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,
The initial efforts by the USDA to protect the American public against mad cow disease are positive first steps, but you need to do more.
I urge the USDA take the following steps: test more cattle for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), institute a mandatory animal tracking system, prohibit the use of vertebral columns from cattle of all ages in advance meat recovery systems (in a recent USDA survey, one out of three samples of stripped meat was contaminated with central nervous-system tissue), publicly release distribution lists during voluntary recalls, and ask Congress for mandatory recall authority.
Sincerely,
|
Campaign Launched:
January 20, 2004
|
After years of trepidation the unwanted happened: a cow afflicted with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)—mad cow disease—was discovered in the U.S. last December. And that raised the possibility that American consumers are at risk of suffering its human counterpart—the devastating and invariably fatal variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease. The one infected Holstein cow immediately caused cattle prices to plunge, Japan and other countries to refuse U.S. beef, and confusion among consumers about what’s safe to eat. Unfortunately, the crisis probably didn’t have to occur.
Over the past decade, the government and the cattle industry have failed to create a stronger “fire-wall” that might have prevented mad cow disease here. Instead, the industry fought off critical control measures that other nations had adopted. And the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration, and Congress lacked the political will to insist on those controls.
Now that the disease has struck, you’d think that everyone finally would agree that it’s time to buttress safeguards on all fronts. To its credit, the USDA has said that it will require the industry to track animals. It will also bar from the food supply injured or sick animals, as well as the brains and spinal cords of older cattle. (Those are the tissues that would most likely contain the misfolded proteins called prions that cause mad cow disease and variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease.) But the USDA needs to do more.
Fortunately, the risk of contracting variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease is vanishingly small. You could avoid it entirely by not eating beef, or by eating organic or grass-fed beef, which comes from cattle that aren’t supposed to get potentially contaminated feed. Boneless steaks, roasts, and ground beef made from boneless beef—as well as cheese and other dairy foods—also appear to be risk-free. Bone-in cuts, like T-bone or porterhouse steaks, may pose a very, very slight risk. Most risky are brains, neck bones, and meats that might contain central-nervous-system tissue from infected cows. That includes meat that has been mechanically stripped from bone (it’s used in some ground beef, hot dogs, taco fillings, pizza toppings, and sausages, but you can’t tell from the labels).
For further details, please visit http://www.cspinet.org/madcow.
|
